Meet Florence Largillière, our new Senior Researcher
We are super excited to announce that this June, we welcomed Florence Largillière into the Pickle team as our new Senior Researcher!
We asked Florence to answer a few questions for you to get to know her a bit better.
Can you tell us a little bit about your career?
It all started in academia, with a PhD in Modern European Jewish history at Queen Mary University in London. If anyone wants to know more about the complicated relationship of patriotic Jews to their nations in the interwar years, I wrote a few hundred pages on the topic!
While and after completing my PhD, I taught at Queen Mary University and King’s College in London and worked as a Writing Tutor. I really enjoyed the student-facing hours, and the research that goes into preparing seminars - a bit less the days spent marking and the casualisation of the industry.
In 2022, I decided to change careers, and turned towards the research and insights field. I started in a London-based social research agency. This provided me with a solid understanding of qualitative research methods, and a renewed curiosity for society, policy, and people in general. But I missed working in the education sector, and when I came across Pickle Jar’s job opening, it felt like perfect timing.
What has been the most interesting project you have worked on?
Spontaneously, I’d say my thesis. It was brilliant to have four years to dedicate to such a complex topic. But I realise it is quite niche in terms of interests!
In my previous role, I worked on a massive project on debt advice services, talking to more than twenty providers and customers. I learned so much from these people, and it taught me a lot both professionally and personally. Some customers were so open and vulnerable, and shared their lives despite knowing me for less than an hour – a humbling experience in many ways.
What is the biggest goal you want to achieve at Pickle Jar?
I would say: making sure the universities, schools, and organisations we work with provide the best student experience or customer service they can. That implies working on their content and its accessibility. But also, and I realise this point is a bit of a self-centred point as PJC’s Senior Researcher, that requires conducting in-depth qualitative and when needed place-based research to fully understand your audiences and their diversity.
What sort of content inspires you?
Storytelling that puts people at its core in general, but I do love content that uses music cleverly, and any unexpected twists and turns.
What is something new you have learnt over the last year?
I’m a former academic, so I can’t be concise, but I’ll limit myself to three new things:
If you start from scratch, weight-lifting is incredibly satisfying.
Horseshoe crabs have been around for hundreds of millions of years and their blood is vital to medical research (and go visit the Crab Museum in Margate if you can).
ChatGPT won’t replace human creativity (but Nick Cave says it better than I do).
Now for some quick single-word answers:
Cats or dogs? Cats 🐱
Mornings or evenings? Mornings
Favourite season? Spring minus the hayfever
Favourite app? Spotify
Favourite food? Lebanese (though I can happily live on fresh bread and salted butter)
Biggest pet peeve? Loud eaters
Job you wanted as a child? Writer or pianist!
Favourite font? Garamond
Most used emoji? :sweat_smile: 😅
Florence, welcome to Pickle Jar!
If you read this and you are eager to work with Florence, let us know!
